Which two resources are abstracted and provided to virtual machines by a hypervisor?

The correct response highlights the two fundamental resources that a hypervisor abstracts from the physical hardware and allocates to virtual machines—CPU and Memory.

The hypervisor acts as an intermediary layer between the physical hardware and the virtual machines, enabling multiple VMs to run on a single physical server without interference. By handling CPU scheduling, the hypervisor can allocate processing time to each virtual machine based on its needs, allowing for efficient multitasking and resource usage.

Memory is equally crucial; the hypervisor oversees memory allocation, ensuring that each virtual machine has access to a portion of the host server's RAM. It can manage memory dynamically, adjusting allocations based on each VM's workload requirements and optimizing performance.

Understanding this abstraction allows for better management of resources and the ability to deploy multiple virtual environments efficiently on a single physical server. Conversely, storage is managed differently through virtual storage solutions and applications are not abstracted by the hypervisor in the same way as CPU and memory.